


Hosanna

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon, Shooting Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-06 22:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10346436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: Catherine teaches Madison to shoot.(Madison teaches herself to hope.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nukawhit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nukawhit/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Heavenly Waters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9907112) by [nukawhit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nukawhit/pseuds/nukawhit). 



> Happy belated birthday, Whit! I love your take on these characters so much. <3

“Extend, arms slightly bent— yes, good,” Catherine says, close enough her breath whispers across Madison’s ear, tickles the back of her neck and makes every hair stand on end. Some frisson of electricity between them, conducted by the warm salt on her lips, the tin-metal tang of anxiety in Madison’s stomach.

Madison tries to ground herself, cataloguing the details that make up this moment. The relentless Capital sun beating down, filtered a deceptively cool green through her aviator goggles. The itchy trickle of sweat down her spine and under her arms. The warm-leather smell of Catherine’s jacket. The faint breeze that stirs the dry grit about her boots, the soles rough against the warm asphalt. An itemized list of sensation, no less meticulous than her lab notes written in blue ink or how she arrays her bobby pins before going to bed.

Madison had requested this extra training lesson, not wanting to burden Catherine in the field. They are both scientists, but where Madison’s had the luxury of advanced training in Hopkins, that’s left her with a considerably less diverse skillset than Catherine’s scavenging and ‘entomology studies,’ as she put it, with the Abbey of the Open Road.

There is a thought— the Abbey has made science the new religion, the way it quickens the blood and brings prayers to the lips of the faithful. It offers both salvation and destruction, some new way forward.

So here they are.

The sun gleams bright-blinding off the tin cans that Catherine’s set up on the Metro tunnel overhang. They’ve already checked the area for ferals, raiders, and anyone— or any _thing_ — else that might be drawn by gunshots.

The 10mm pistol in Madison’s hand is a small thing, really. Nothing like the stopping power of Catherine’s shotgun, but the ammo is cheap and the recoil minimal. If all goes well, Madison won’t even need to fire it outside of practice.

She is too much of a realist to trust that all will go well.

Madison wishes she’d thought ahead to bring ear protection, but when they’d left Megaton she’d been thinking solely of utility, the things that would be essential to their maneuvers and the small luxuries that make life on the road more bearable. So they’d bought rattling boxes of ammo and dried strips of jerky, bottles of dry shampoo and thin towels for sanitary pads, small parts to repair or replace necessary components in their radio, stubs of pencil and blue and black-ink ballpoint pens, a half dozen grenades for both combat _and_ to get past any locked doors that defy Catherine’s lockpicking, but Madison had not thought to buy ear plugs.

Silly her.

“Take your time,” Catherine says, now farther away.

Madison feels her absence as an ache, small as it is. Only a few steps between them, their shadows still touching, but Catherine’s been a constant presence in these days on the road, both her physical proximity and her husky voice and long tales, the way she hums hymns behind her teeth and sings prayer before going to bed. This is a faith that Madison cannot touch, but she can still bask in its glow. It’s as much as part of Catherine as her teeth and marrow, as the warm sunrise of her smile and the tight twists of her braid.

So Madison takes her time. Breathes out. Fires.

_Crack_! A small clap, the recoil twitching through her arms, her shoulders, but she absorbs it, stance firm and square. The sound is barely more than a firecrackle next to the thunderous _click-boom_ of Catherine’s shotgun, but still enough to ring Madison’s ears. She missed the can entirely, her shot flying high.

Madison tries again.

This time she grazes the can, wobbling it over the edge of the wall and onto the metal steps below, bouncing on its way down.

She doesn’t wait for it to finish rattling to a still before firing. Again. Again. She does not wear her gun with the same ease as Catherine, does not move with the same fluidity— does not think she ever will, not unless she puts more practice, drills it down into reflex and muscle memory, but this is one small thing she can do.

Aim. Fire. Empty the magazine.

The brass casings rattle out like a rosary, hit the ground. Gunpowder is incense in her nostrils, acrid smoke and sour metal. It evokes something harsh, primal; a studied contrast, after the dry aseptic smell of the lab and harsh chemical cleansers.

Her fingers are numb, shaky— and why is she shaking, when there are no enemies here? She struggles for perspective, contracts her vision to that narrow line of cans. Silences her doubts; there is only the relentless drumbeat of her heart, thumping echoes through her ears.

Catherine steps close, her presence a soothing weight as she wraps her hands around Madison’s, gently pries her fingers from the pistol grip and ejects the magazine for her.

“Do you want to keep going, or…?” Catherine’s voice trails. _This isn’t giving up, this is a break_ , she says, unvoiced. Madison can read it in the knit of her brow, the lack of tension in her hands. This is a patience beyond any of Madison’s teachers.

“I will keep going,” Madison says, crisp. As if she can fortify her spine with her words. She breathes in. Out. Better to learn control, here, than in the heat of a firefight. She has mastered herself, over, and over— knows her worth in dog-eared textbooks and precious data, long hours and caffeine-fuelled nights. She knows her worth through output, her actions precisely weighed and measured like reagents in the lab. She is as valuable as she is _useful_ , but her first priority is to value _herself_.

(That last sounds suspiciously like Catherine, which is the only reason Madison is starting to believe it.)

Madison keeps going until all cans are vanquished, sent tumbling to the depths below. This feels like it should by something out of some idyllic prewar fantasy; two women, a line of cans, the sun overhead. Some country recreation, rather than something that could save their lives in the near future. Madison always finds herself considering the past, around Catherine. Perhaps because Catherine finds such fascination in Old World stories and religion, the way she draws clear, bright lines out of the prewar culture and finds parallels to the scattered tales of today. Perhaps because even now, Madison is afraid that their future is still something unset, uncertain.

Better to put one step forward, to take measured moments and consider each course of action, analytically, clinically, than to get lost in daydreams of who they might become.

So Madison grounds herself. Catalogues the details of the moment: the warm flush of pride as Catherine claps her on the back, the faint grey shine of gunpowder residue on her palm. The way her left sock is starting to fall down, bagging against her shins. The way Catherine’s hand fits in hers, the way Catherine kisses her knuckles like a benediction, then her mouth, tongue wet with shattered hymns. Madison’s heart sings _hosanna, hosanna—_

Madison will break her own heart for what breaks hers.


End file.
